1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a musical tone control system and a musical tone control apparatus, which control musical tone generation in a manner reflecting motions or physical postures of users.
2. Description of the Related Art
Audio systems and other musical tone generating apparatuses can generate desired musical tones once four performance parameters of tone color, pitch, volume, and effects are determined. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) musical instruments and other musical tone generating apparatuses perform music based on music data. Users adjust the volume and other performance parameters by knobs, buttons, etc. of the MIDI musical instruments.
As described above, in MIDI musical instruments and other musical tone generating apparatuses, the desired volume etc. are obtained by the user suitably operating knobs or other operating elements. When a user listens to music performed by a musical tone generating apparatus at a desired volume etc., the method of adjustment of the performance parameters by control knobs is effective. In the conventional musical tone generating apparatuses, however, while it is possible to provide the user with performance or reproduction fidelity of music based on music data, it is not possible to provide the user with the pleasure of actively participating in the reproduction of the music.
Therefore, a system may be considered in which motion sensors are attached to one or more parts of the body of the user, movement of the body of the user is detected by these sensors, and music is played based on the results of the detection. By using such a system, it is possible to control the performance of music based on MIDI data etc. in accordance with motion of the user rather than having the user dance or otherwise move in accordance with the music and to thereby provide the user with a new form of participatory musical entertainment. Especially, it can be considered that if such motion sensors are attached to parts of a plurality of users and generation of musical tones is controlled in playing a musical composition in a manner reflecting motions of the users, musical entertainment with enhanced pleasure can be provided.
In such a system in which motions of a plurality of users are detected and music is performed in accordance with a plurality of detection results, however, if musical tone generation control is carried out in accordance with motions of all the users in a state where one user stops moving due to fatigue or the like while the other users are moving, it results in that the motion (no motion) of the user stopping moving is reflected upon the performance of music. Also, if the motion of one user largely departs from those of the other users, the departing motion of the user is reflected upon the performance of music, and thus performance of music intended by the other users cannot be carried out.